When you first notice that ringing in your ears you might have a very common response: pretend everything’s fine. You continue your regular routines: you have a chat with friends, go to the store, and make lunch. While you simultaneously try your best to ignore that ringing. Because you’re convinced of one thing: your tinnitus will go away on its own.
After several more days of unrelenting buzzing and ringing, however, you begin to have doubts.
You aren’t the only person to ever find yourself in this scenario. Tinnitus can be a challenging little condition, sometimes it will go away by itself and in some cases, it will stick around for a long time to come.
The Condition of Temporary Tinnitus
Around the globe, almost everyone has had a bout of tinnitus because it’s extremely common. In almost all cases, tinnitus is essentially temporary and will ultimately disappear by itself. A rock concert is an excellent illustration: you go to your local arena to see your favorite band and you discover, when you get home, that there is a ringing in your ears.
The type of tinnitus that is linked to temporary damage from loud noise will normally decrease within a couple of days (and you chalk it up to the price of seeing your favorite band on stage).
Naturally, it’s precisely this kind of noise injury that, over time, can cause hearing loss to move from temporary (or acute, as they say) to chronic. One concert too many and you may be waiting a long, long time for your tinnitus to recede on its own.
sometimes, Tinnitus Doesn’t Simply go Away
If your tinnitus doesn’t subside (with help or on its own) within the span of three months or so, the condition is then classified chronic tinnitus (this does not, however, suggest that you should wait three months to talk to someone about lingering ringing, buzzing, or thumping in your ears).
Something like 5-15% of people around the world have reported symptoms of chronic tinnitus. The exact causes of tinnitus are still not very well known though there are some known connections (like loss of hearing).
Usually, a quick cure for tinnitus will be unidentifiable if the causes aren’t obvious. If your ears have been buzzing for more than three months and there’s no identifiable cause, there’s a good chance that the sound will not recede by itself. But if this is your circumstance, you can maintain your quality of life and manage your symptoms with some treatment possibilities (such as noise canceling devices and cognitive behavioral therapy).
The Reason For Your Tinnitus is Important
When you can establish the root cause of your tinnitus, dealing with the condition suddenly becomes much simpler. If a bacterial ear infection is, for example, the reason for your tinnitus, you can revive a healthy ear and clear hearing by treating it with antibiotics.
Here are some potential causes of acute tinnitus:
- A blockage in the ear or ear canal
- Meniere’s disease (this is often associated with chronic tinnitus, as Meniere’s has no cure)
- Hearing loss (again, this is often associated with chronic tinnitus)
- Damage to the eardrum (such as a perforated eardrum)
- Chronic ear infections
So…Will The Noises in My Ears Stop?
In general, your tinnitus will recede on its own. But it becomes progressively more likely that you’re dealing with chronic tinnitus the longer these tinnitus sounds remain.
You believe that if you just disregard it should go away by itself. But there may come a point where your tinnitus begins to become irritating, where it’s tough to focus because the sound is too disruptive. In those circumstances, crossing your fingers may not be the comprehensive treatment plan you need.
Most of the time tinnitus is just the body’s reaction to loud noise that could be damaging over time and will go away by itself. Whether that’s chronic or acute tinnitus, well, only time will tell.